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This article explores the entomological research of American astronomer Harlow Shapley (1885–1972). The focus is 1914–1921, the time that Shapley worked as a staff astronomer at Mount Wilson Observatory in the San Gabriel Mountains of California. The years 1919–1920 receive particular attention because they were the most active period for Shapley’s ant experiments. During these years, Shapley undertook two primary programmes of study in ant physiology, each centred on a specific species native to Southern California—the velvety tree ant and the California harvester ant. Shapley’s ant research was dependent upon the scientific environment of Mount Wilson Observatory because of several benefits and opportunities that the location offered him. The section ‘Observatory ants’ discusses the details of Shapley’s research programme as well as the advantages given him by his location. The subsequent section, ‘Indoor ants’, discusses a change in environment for Shapley’s ant experiments and how that change, from an outdoor to an indoor setting, changed the scope and nature of his research. This section also discusses the influences that Shapley’s work came to have in the disciplines of entomology, ecology, general physiology, and behavioural science. The final section, ‘Living and non-living?’, discusses the impacts that Shapley’s ant research came to have on his own later work concerning cosmic evolution and interdisciplinary co-operation among the sciences. In conclusion, we are left with evidence suggesting that Shapley’s work in entomology was highly location-dependent while also possessing far-reaching consequences.

The Sun, stars similar to it, and many rather dissimilar to it, have chromospheres , regions classically viewed as lying above the brilliant photosphere and characterized by a positive temperature gradient and a marked departure from radiative equilibrium. Stellar chromospheres exhibit a wide range of phenomena collectively called activity , stemming largely from the time evolution of their magnetic fields and the mass flux and transfer of radiation through the complex magnetic topology and the increasingly optically thin plasma of the outer stellar atmosphere. In this review, I will (1) outline the development of our understanding of chromospheric structure from 1960 to the present, (2) discuss the major observational programs and theoretical lines of inquiry, (3) review the origin and nature of both solar and stellar chromospheric activity and its relationship to, and effect on, stellar parameters including total energy output, and (4) summarize the outstanding problems today.

This chapter discusses the history of observatories from their development in a mature form in the Islamic world to the emergence of mountain observatories in the late nineteenth century and space observatories in the years after World War II. Due to the available forms of patronage, observatories were generally short‐lived institutions until the seventeenth century when official observatories came to the fore and were often established on a firm financial basis. With the development of astronomy beyond optical wavelengths, observatories too expanded in meaning, most radically in the case of space astronomy.

The Carte du Ciel project has been blamed for retarding the development of astrophysics in Europe by devouring scarce resources. Other factors are examined and found to be equally valid.